One Blessing Stephen has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for conspiracy and child trafficking by a Magistrate Court in Port Harcourt.
The presiding Magistrate, Chief Magistrate Felicitas Amanze found Stephen guilty of two-count charge bordering on conspiring to sell the one year and seven months old baby identified as Blessing Monday at the sum of N20,000.
32 year-old Stephen was arraigned alongside one Abigail Monday Udo and mother of the trafficked baby who was also asked by the court to report to three times a week to sweep and dust the furniture in the court room for one year.
The Magistrate said the court was lenient with the mother for showing remorse throughout the trial and for the fact that she was deceived to sell her child.
But Chief Magistrate Felicitas Amanze, described Stephen as “an unrepentant and harden liar”, stating that the prosecution was able to prove that she actually deceived the first defendant to sell the baby, gave her N20,000 and never gave her the balance till date.
Chief Magistrate Amanze sentenced her to three years in count one and seven years in count two of the charges filed against her by the police.
The sentences are to run consecutively.
Speaking to journalists, the Counsel who represented International Federation of Female Lawyers, FIDA,Rivers State Chapter, at the trial, Esther Achor Okorienta, commended the court for the judgment.
According to her, the judgment will serve as a deterrent to child traffickers and those who are bent on continuing in the business of human trafficking.
